2006 European Grand Prix - Qualification - Mixed Luck For Renault…
May 6th, 2006 by Haas
Alonso was the hero at the Ring as he produced the only sub 1 min 30 sec lap to take his first pole of the season. Fisichella disappointed as he failed for the second time in a row to make the cut and to the 3rd session of qualification.
Michael was strong right throughout the session along with team mate Massa as they took places 2 and 3. Barrichello for the first time this season out qualified his teammate to p4 as Button had to settle for p6 right behind the Mc Laren of Kimi Raikkonen. Trulli, Villeneuve, Montoya and Webber makeup the remaining 4 places in the top 10.
The intresting part of the qualification was as usual the final moments of the first 2 sessions. In the first session a red flag was indicated with 3 min to go and called off within 15 sec. This upset the pace of cars on track costing some runners a decent time and Klien suffered as he was knocked out of further qualification.
In the second session it was another sad day for Fisichella as he was clearly in the relegation zone and stepped out to better his time. With a make or break lap he drove spectacularly in the first 2 sectors… close to P3 at sec 1 and P5 at sec 2. It looked like the Renault had survived a huge scare when all of a sudden he lost over half a sec in the final sector. The culprit was a slower car ahead of him, that of Villeneuve. A frustrated Fisi walked up to the BMW pit and confronted a clearly busy Villeneuve… The result of that battle will probably hv to wait.
In the final session a masterful change in strategy by Renault saw Alonso making 2 pits(compared to his regular 1 pit). The 2 hot laps saw the Spaniard setting the track on fire with 2 awe-inspiring laps. Michael who was stronger in sector 1 all the time compared to the Renault fell short by 2 tenths of a second.
The race for tmrw promises to be amazing… The Reigning champ is clearly my favorite to win and I wont be surprised to watch Michael on the 2nd step. The 3rd position will be contested between the 2 Mc Larens(who are clearly heavily fueled) and Massa and the 2 Hondas.
As for Kimi and Mc Laren I believe they are not heavily fueled enough to go on a strategy with one less stop, if they do I see them challenging the Ferrari of Michael towards the end.
Fuel usage wise Alonso and Kimi hv the highest laps in their 3rd session but Alonso pitted twice hence those 2 laps will be negated and Kimi will gain from the single pit stop. Ferrari mistimed their stops and cost Michael and Massa one lap worth of fuel. How all this plays up will hv to be seen but where I stand Alonso and Michael and Massa will probably pit within a lap of each other and the Mc Larens will run atleast 5 more laps(even 10) so here is where Alonso’s pace off the start will become an important factor for him to seal this victory.
2006 European Grand Prix
Pos Driver Team First Second Third Laps 1 Fernando Alonso Renault 1:31.138 1:30.336 1:29.819 20 2 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:31.235 1:30.013 1:30.028 19 3 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:31.921 1:30.732 1:30.407 21 4 Rubens Barrichello Honda 1:31.671 1:30.469 1:30.754 20 5 Kimi Räikkönen McLarenMercedes 1:31.263 1:30.203 1:30.933 20 6 Jenson Button Honda 1:31.420 1:30.755 1:30.940 23 7 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:31.809 1:30.733 1:31.419 26 8 Jacques Villeneuve Sauber-BMW 1:31.545 1:30.865 1:31.542 22 9 Juan Pablo Montoya McLarenMercedes 1:31.774 1:30.671 1:31.880 22 10 Mark Webber WilliamCosworth 1:31.712 1:30.892 1:33.405 20 11 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1:31.470 1:30.944 12 Nico Rosberg WilliamCosworth 1:32.053 1:31.194 13 Giancarlo Fisichela Renault 1:31.574 1:31.197 14 David Coulthard RBR-Ferrari 1:31.742 1:31.227 15 Nick Heidfeld Sauber-BMW 1:31.457 1:31.422 16 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Cosworth 1:32.621 1:31.728 17 Christian Klien RBR-Ferrari 1:32.901 18 Christijan Albers MF1-Toyota 1:32.936 19 Scott Speed STR-Cosworth 1:32.992 20 Tiago Monteiro MF1-Toyota 1:33.658 21 Takuma Sato SuperAguriHonda 1:35.239 22 Franck Montagny SuperAguriHonda 1:46.505